As a new teacher, I find myself feeling bombarded and overwhelmed with new technology. Even figuring out how to navigate this website was a challenge for me. I try to remind myself that the same feeling of frustration with digital media is similar to the struggles that people with different learning styles may have to printed text or oral questions, both formats that are easy for me to understand and use to access different pools of knowledge. For example, struggling to put together my first power point presentation for a class last semester is a feeling that others may confront when asked to demonstrate their knowledge using a format that feels equally foreign and inaccessible.

I teach in a K/1 classroom at a school for children with special needs. The children in my classroom, like children in all classrooms, have a variety of learning styles and abilities. I found the Strangman, Hall, & Meyer article on Graphic Organizers interesting. For some reason, I had never considered graphic organizers to be a kind of technology, but I find that they are really helpful to a lot of my students and use them in my classroom. Due to the age of my students, the graphic organizers we use are very simple and usually aid reading lessons. Many of my students have language delays and have difficulty with story comprehension and structure. We use story trains to map out the beginning, middle, and end of stories we read together, and series of event chains to describe the plot through the various events of a story. Most of these graphic organizers are constructed by the teacher, with student input, as part of large-group activities on the smartboard, but reading this article made me think about different potential activities to use them for, such as having students complete them in small groups on printed copies. With teacher guidance and differentiated means of expression (some kids will be able to write short sentences about story events, others will be able to demonstrate their knowledge through drawing), I think this may be a good strategy to assess reading comprehension and understanding of story structure in my classroom.

I also found Ferriter’s article, “Learning with Blogs and Wikis” really exciting. It is amazing to think of the potential professional knowledge teachers have access to because of digital tools that enable collaboration and a means to share thoughts and opinions. I think it would be incredibly helpful to have an avenue to share milestones, ask questions, seek out opinions and push my own thinking, especially as a new teacher. While I see this as a great opportunity, I also feel like it is still slightly inaccessible to me because I am not comfortable with a lot of the Web 2.0 technology. Even though I’m a little intimidated, it was helpful how Ferriter recognized these sentiments and provided examples of websites for teachers to use to ease themselves into the global community, and I am excited to launch myself into this world, and know that there is guidance and support among peers.